Artist development really fascinates me in 2011...mostly because I haven’t developed as an artist at all. I’m lucky to be involved with a “record label” that hustles harder than I ever could, and sure enough, World Around Records is bringing me out to Bennington, Vermont on May 7th for their annual Sunfest. Being a small-minded and selfish rapper type, I immediately wanted to book more shows, and that’s where my re-education began: Nobody Cares.
I’m not complaining, mind you—cold showers are good. It’s easy to masturbate in the social media hall of mirrors, innit? Fan emails and random groupies make it easy to pretend you’re successful, especially when you’re not.
DIY Touring? Yeah, I’ve been there. San Mateo, California, playing for a basement full of four people. It was valuable experience and if I had to pinpoint any single moment that was responsible for my obsessive interest in the music biz...that would be it. Actual photo:
There’s absolutely no point in lying to promoters about what kind of draw you’ve got, but by the same token, there’s really no point in talking to promoters at all. They give no fucks. They’re not in the artist development business, they’re in the “Making Money off of Developed Artists” business, and only a poodle would whine about that. Facts is facts: I’m 12 months of constant work (or one lucky break) away from talking to promoters in anything but an Annoying Moron capacity.
Meanwhile, I’ve got a lot of motivated and creative fans in weird places. Here’s where I’m going to be in May 2011, approximately:
So far we’ve got May 7th taken care of (and the night before), plus the following dates:
May 11th - Metronome - DJ Oh-J’s Live Mixtape
May 14th - Radio Bean - Face One’s Extravanganza
May 19th - top secret gig oh ho ho whoo-wee daug
May 28th - Charlie-O’s - with Aleck Woog and more
I’d really like to break into Boston, but preliminary inquiries make it pretty clear that’s no simple task. Other markets I salivate over: Portsmouth, NH - Northampton, MA - Providence, RI - Albany, NY - and New Haven, CT. If you’ve got leads, advice, or just want to throw money at us, get in touch:
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FAIR WARNING: This is one of those “rapper” posts.
How did this fall between the cracks? It’s been a busy week, post-Bostonia, as we get prepped for our April Blitz...stockpiling ammunition and assessing back catalog, contemplating new merch, booking shows...you know the drill. “1999” got dropped at the ass-end of 2010, before we’d really built our Publicity Machine properly, so forgive me if I spend the end of March pushing this one all over again. This is one of my all-around favorite tracks and it’s a homeless orphan. Figures.
Like Brainsticles, this track is a two-parter. The first half is produced by Dr. Quandary and the second is courtesy of Ronnie Raygun, legendary Boston producer behind a billion different tracks, especially Alaskan Fishermen and Thirstin Howl III. You know how most rappers feel about Dr. Dre? That’s exactly how psyched I am to be working with Ronnie Raygun.
Anyways, lyrics:
1999 and my hip hop dreams
consisted of biting rhymes from Talib Kweli
yeah, I used to show and prove with stolen moves
so did you - and both of us are too much older, too
I’m clean, sober, aggravated, over-caffinated
never been so focused and totally fascinated
with lyrics and rhymes, wanna hear a theory of mine? (no)
I wasted ten fucking years a couple beers at a time
and it’s easy to do, rolling over and sleeping til noon
I don’t just sell these lies, I believe in them, too
the way I mess my life up, you’d think I train, but actually
lazy-ass apathy came to me crazy naturally, huh
now I’m power lunch, team player, group hug
release date’s in two months, deejays need new stuff
guess you never heard my world-famous early shit
it’s true that I’ve improved, but dude, I wouldn’t change a word of it
universal energy with music as the weaponry
and ritual performances for kids who know my choruses
that’s exactly why I never listen to fans
...you all talk too much and I need listeners, man
either keep the people sweating or leave ‘em guessing
but either way, nowadays, we need to make investments
most of you are independent because most of you suck
but me, I’m either not promoting enough or I’m smoking too much
...
your opinion can get fucked in sixty-four positions
I torture gimmicks, freestyle flows that form religions
history repeats, and it’s an obvious fact
that those who chose to lead the way just get shot in the back
...no respect for those who sold their soul for checks
got me playing old cassettes on a half-broken deck
like fuck rap, I listen to tapes my dad made me
that warp like a priest and shake like crack babies
the smooth shit, you know, those nineteen fifty two hits
honest truth, not this new prositituted music
got every single verse that I spit perfectly mixed
burn it to disk, and memorize my circle of fifths
known for dropping history, smoking pot religiously
and crash testing my skills with black mescaline pills
history repeats, so all those victories, defeats
and plastic trophies won’t be meaning shit when you’re deceased
shock to the system, ugly but we want you to listen
face the fact you’re gonna die and make a conscious decision
like fuck rap, this is just a means to an end
cuz I try and reach you, so then I can sleep with your friends
I’m the new shit, you know, exactly like the old shit
a couple drunk and stoned hicks repackaged it and sold it
you never learn, getting burned trying to touch the light
but it’s just another night, buzzing off the blood of Christ
Feedback, Networking, Booking, Anything ==>
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How am I still offending people in 2011? Don’t y’all know about me by now? Got a couple angry emails about Tuesday’s post, including this little gem:
“You should man up and apologize and think about all the cops who gave their lives for your safety or you lost another reader.”
Yeah, I’ve been watching that RSS ticker counting down to zero since I re-started the site...feels good. Maybe I can get it down into the double digit range with this one.
You already know I’m not going to apologize, just like I already know that despite your poodle threats, you’re going to keep reading this site for years to come. Since I’ve already started a big ugly conversation, let’s finish it off properly here today. They keep delaying my flight and besides, I can’t stop thinking about Moreno’s last words on that tape recording: “If you stop drinking, I’ll be your boyfriend. I’m not a bad man. I’m a good friend to have.”
Kenneth Moreno is 43 and he’s got 2 kids, at least, according to the papers. On December 7th, 2008, he responded to call from a concerned cab driver who had just driven a “drunk and vomiting” woman to her home but didn’t think she’d even be able to make it inside. Moreno’s accounting of events is meaningless in the face of the story told by surveillance video: they escorted her inside her building at 1 am and came out 7 minutes later. They returned 40 minutes after that and stayed inside the apartment for just over 20 minutes, then exited covering their faces. Then they returned at 3 am, and let themselves inside with the woman’s keys.
Franklin Mata’s soft, sad little baby face speaks volumes. His career as a cop lasted for three years and it’s over now because he had the sheer courage and moral clarity to stand guard as the “lookout” while Moreno raped an unconscious woman. One wonders what exactly he was looking out for. He sat on her sofa and looked around her living room and thought about whatever it is people think about when they’ve decided to wait on the sofa while someone gets raped in the next room.
Wait. Did I say Mata’s career was over? My bad...let me explain something.
Do you remember Kenneth Boss? Just kidding, of course you don’t...shit, half of you probably think that’s a fashion line. Kenneth Boss is the NYPD officer who killed Amadou Diallo, which is a name you really should remember. Kenneth Boss has something horrible in common with Franklin “Babyface” Mata and Kenneth Moreno: he’s still on the NYPD payroll.
Yup. Really.
It’s called the “Rubber Gun Squad” and it’s over 300 of the NYPD’s finest fuckups, collecting about $22 million every...single...year. In the case of Kenneth Boss, he’s been making an annual salary of $104,526 since he put 5 bullets in to Amadou Diallo on February 4th, 1999. For those of you into math, yeah, that’s about 12 years of paychecks, adding up to well over a million taxpayer dollars.
Now, look: obviously not all cops are rapists and blah blah blah. You can even make the case that cases like this are a good thing, because it indicates the NYPD is trying to break down the Blue Wall. Consider the case of Rubber Gun Squad member Alex Cruz, who was busted for falsifying paperwork to cover up the fact one of his fellow officers raped a 24 year old tattoo artist with his police baton in the middle of a subway station. At least Alex Cruz is off the beat, right? At least we catch a few more bad apples every year, right? Whatever.
Just please don’t expect me to give a fuck about any of that when there’s no real consequences for these assholes. That’s not a weird legal wrinkle, that’s a serious cultural problem, and that’s the reason it’s impossible to see these men as anything but...pigs.
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The details are pretty disgusting and you can feel free to google ‘em on up. I’m not rehashing it here, just sharing the single most amazing detail. It’s the part of the movie that suddenly and accidentally shows way too much and cuts way too deep. The mask slips and Big Pathology gets simple honest. This particular virus script will probably seem all too familiar to a lot of readers. (Sorry to get all serious on a random Tuesday, too.)
His name is Kenneth Moreno, and he is NYPD. He was caught on video in uniform. This conversation was recorded via hidden mic onto cassette tape, standing on a sidewalk in Manhattan, in the middle of the day. What follows is verbatim transcription from the public evidence:
Woman: I woke up and you guys were taking advantage of me.
Moreno: Nobody took advantage of you.
Woman: You were having sex with me. I was violated.
Moreno: No you weren’t — nothing happened.
Woman: You’re lying.
Moreno: OK. It turned from us trying to help you to getting really crazy.
Moreno: What do you remember?
Woman: I remember getting up the stairs and waking up on the bathroom floor. The next thing I know, I’m in my bed, you’re taking off my clothes and having sex with me.
Moreno: OK
Woman: OK?
Moreno: It wasn’t done intentionally. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just got caught up. I’m sorry.
Woman: I need to know if I’m OK. Did you wear a condom — yes or no?
Moreno: Yes, I did. You don’t have to worry about any diseases or getting pregnant.
Woman: Was it only you?
Moreno: It was only me.
Moreno: If you stop drinking, I’ll be your boyfriend. I’m not a bad man. I’m a good friend to have.
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It’s weird that our culture holds such a dim view of sex workers, because it seems pretty clear to me that we’re all getting fucked for money, and at least five days a week, too. There’s no shame in that game, folks...there are, however, a few huge problems with that proposition. Namely, there’s more competition in the streets, overhead costs are going way up, and our pimps keep taking a bigger cut every year.
There’s nothing hypothetical or theoretical about class warfare—in fact, it’s really been the only game in town for centuries now. It’s no secret that a vast majority of the human beings living on the Planet Earth today are on the losing side of that war. That will change whenever they get around to waking up, which will probably be at least another 500 to 50,000 years. Meanwhile, I recommend finding a hobby you can really enjoy.
Alex Jones is sounding sane enough for Glenn Beck to bite his whole schtick and still be considered a Conservative. All the Zero Hedge rhetoric about “bond vigilantes” got hella real last week when Bill Gross pulled the plug on his US Treasury life support. The fact that such a goofy little turd would be in any position to make decisions worth hundreds of billions is completely insane, but hey, here we are. It’s 2011 and reality is completely broken. Pucker up.
This isn’t some kind of Eat The Rich, sore loser diatribe, though—don’t misconstrue me. This is actually about sympathy for the devil. You see, what’s always lost on the proletariat is the high cost of actually winning the class war. Freedom is insanely expensive and dangerously temporary, and worst of all, pretty everyone who’s already made it is a fucking asshole...at best. Most of them are far worse than that, like the Saudi Princes who spend decades in London hotel rooms beating up hookers, or fat greaseball cokehead pedophiles...you know, like the current Prime Minister of Italy.
Isn’t that photo insane? The story tells itself, huh? Would Barack be the first US President to knock a foreign head of state right the fuck out? The Kali Yuga will only continue to get crazier from here, so enjoy the calm sanity of 2011 while it lasts. Sure there was an 8.9 earthquake in Japan this week, but someday soon, you’re going to look back on this as The Good Old Days...you know, back when the earthquakes would actually stop…
I have good news, though: there’s no way for you to fully understand how fucked you are, so this really is as bad as it gets. This constant, low-level panic that’s eating at the soft corners of your mind? It won’t get any worse, and once Homeland Security starts drugging your water in 2015, it will all fade into perfectly acceptable background noise. For most of you, it’s already been there all along.
For those of you still awake, though: Cheers. Uncle Humpasaur is here to party with you beautiful mutants until none of us can remember what we were crying about, why were were laughing or what we were drinking for...and it’s all the same question, on the road to 2012.
I love you all.
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